Mark Tapscott: Political elites still don't get the Tea Party

Obama Continues His Leftist Assault On The US
Obama uses red tape and agencies to support bills that were defeated. After an inspiring mid term election that saw Republicans recapturing many lost seats and gaining control in many states, everyone one assumed that the resulting Lame Duck session of the Democrats would be the last hurdle. However, that assumption would be proven wrong. Obama will continue his manner of shoving Legislation down the throats of the American People a different way. Many assumed, and rightly so, that Obama would r...

Nassau County Gets A 3-Week Reprieve. Shouldn't County Exec Mangano Be Forced To Leave?
1. Instead of taking over the county's finances today as it was widely expected to do, the Nassau Interim Financing Authority, the Oversight Board established after the county's last Budget fiasco to monitor its finances, today decided to give County Executive Edward Mangano three more weeks to come up with a Balanced Budget that is based on more than gimmicks, mirrors, and praying. As David Halbfinger reports in the New York Times, the extension, which was granted at Mangano's request, was anyt...

Mama Said Knock You Out
In “ObamaCare knockout,” Michael Walsh writes that “America awaits GOP’s punch:” So the time to deal a body blow to ObamaCare is now. Since all spending bills must originate in the House, it will be up to the Republican majority there to first defund it, then to Repeal it. Indeed, if they play their cards just right, ObamaCare can be the wedge issue that finally exposes liberal do-goodism for what it really is: coercion with a smiley face, cloaked in the false man...

Poll: Most Americans Support Health Law Or Want To Make It More Progressive
One of the major rallying cries of the Republican Party and the wider Conservative Movement has been to Repeal the recently passed Health Care law. To justify this demand, these Conservatives claim that Americans want the law to be repealed and that they think it goes too far in expanding the government and would prefer a Free Market approach to Health Care (which has no history of working anywhere at anytime). Last week, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe made this claim in on op-ed published...

Vice President "Bite Me" Takes Credit For Bush Tax Cuts He Wants To Repeal In Two Years
Vice President "Bite Me," aka Joe "Plugs" Biden, wrote a message the other day and wants my address so that Barack Hussein Obama can send me a thank you note, via his DNC Astroturf organization, "Organizing For America" (aka Astroturfing for Obama). Text below: There's more whoppers in this e-mail than you'd find in a Burger King. Friend -- I've been in Washington for almost 40 years. I've seen a lot of Congresses come and go. But I can't remember a group of lawmakers who accomplished more than...

New York Times Editorial Board Concerned That Some People Might View Federal Government as An Intrusive Parent
The New York Times editorial board is not happy with a proposed Constitutional Amendment giving State Legislatures the power to overturn any act of Congress with the approval of two-thirds of state legislatures. That’s hardly a surprise. But the most telling passage comes toward the end, when the editorial argues that the primary problem with the proposed amendment is the federalist spirit in which it was offered: These flaws make the proposed amendment self-defeating, but they are far less ...

Huckabee's repeal PAC fires notorious scam artist
If you watch Cable News during the day, you've seen this ad: That's likable former Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee, the famous Fox Talk Show host, directing viewers to sign a petition to Repeal ObamaCare. Harmless enough stuff, really, except that the silly "Repeal It Now" campaign was being managed by a known scam artist, as Think Progress reported yesterday. The company running the website and doing other media work for Repeal It Now is run by a real scuzzball named Derek Oberholtzer, wh...

No Child Left Behind: Will It Be Reauthorized in the 112th Congress?
So far this century, a number of new laws have been enacted that have been heavily criticized. Among others are the Patriot Act, the Medicare bill that provides a paid prescription benefit, TARP, and Obama Care. My pet legislative peeve for today is the No Child Left Behind Act. For some of the Legislation that was mentioned earlier nothing can be done. No Congress would ever Repeal the Paid Prescription benefit. Enough of our representatives and senators fear the wrath of the elderly, who care...

Pundit accountability: Which predictions did I blow in 2010?
The night that Health Care reform passed the House, I stood under a balcony and listened to Rep. Michele Bachmann promise full Repeal by any means necessary. Since then, I've taken it seriously when Republicans come up with ways to undo ObamaCare. But I was skeptical at first of the Lawsuits filed by state attorneys general, aimed at repealing the mandate portion of the bill. "Ambitious Republican politicians are clambering on board with the idea of Lawsuits to Repeal the Health Care individual ...

The Coming War over the Constitution
Surely, there can be honest debates about what's the best way to "promote the general Welfare," or the wisest balance between taxation and Debt, or the proper role of states in enforcing laws when there is a federal interest (as with Arizona's anti-immigrant "present your papers" law). But the pretense of the Tea Party is that the U.S. Constitution is definitive on these points and that the Founders favored today's right-wing interpretation of the Federal Government's powers, i.e. that taxes, ...

Center For American Progress' Neera Tanden On Obama: "Washington Will Not Determine His Success" In 2011.
ABC News' Amy Walter reports: When President Obama returns from Vacation next week he’ll get his first taste of life with a bigger and more emboldened Republican Congress eager to Repeal much of the Legislation passed over the last two years. On ABC News' Top Line today, Center for American Progress’ Neera Tanden argues that the President shouldn’t get too caught up in what is happening on the Hill but should instead “get out of Washington, because Washington will not dete

NC Lawmaker Lashes Out At Burr For DADT Repeal Vote: Homosexuals Are Sexual Predators
NC Lawmaker Lashes Out At Burr For DADT Repeal Vote: ‘Homosexuals Are Sexual Predators’ During his re-election bid this past November, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said that he supported the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and expressed concern about “changing the accommodations for Troops if the policy changed.” But following the Pentagon’s review of the ban and the Testimony of Military leadership, Burr ultimately voted for final passage of repeal, even as...

Time Magazines Joe Klein Sums Up 2010 As Not Much A More Accurate Description Of His Own Opinions
My namesake Joe Klein wrote in his latest Time Magazine column that nothing much happened in 2010. If he meant to say that the Progressives did not achieve their agenda of fundamentally transforming America into a European-style democratic Socialist Welfare State, I think he is right. But in this case less is more. The Republicans played good defense and prevented the creeping government take-over of key parts of our economy under President Obama from becoming a catastrophic rout of our free m...

Senate 2012: How Did It Go So Wrong So Fast?
Ugh. It’s not even 2011 and that’s my sentiments about the 2012 Republican nomination battle. While most of the state is not paying attention to this intra-party nonsense, the posturing by the Candidates and soon-to-be Candidates has been awful. There’s no other word for it, simply awful from top to bottom. With the selection of a primary, the stage was set for former Senator George Allen to ascend. Bob Marshall and Jamie Radtke’s only chances were a convention, so with ...

Whats Wrong, Really, With Using Campaign Funds For Personal Purposes?
I’m not a big fan of Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party favorite and unsuccessful Candidate for the Senate from Delaware. Indeed, whenever one of her “I’m you” commercials appeared on my TV, I got up and shouted: “No you’re not.” But whatever the merits of recent reports that say she may be under investigation for inappropriately using campaign funds, I have to say that laws that make this illegal strike me as wrong. Why shouldn’t candidate...

New Year Predictions: The Tea Party Strategy and U.S. Economy in 2011
Advice to Obama White House: Get ready. New Year Prediction II: The U.S. Economy What will happen to the US economy in 2011? If you're referring to profits of big corporations and Wall Street, next year is likely to be a good one. But if you're referring to Average American workers, far from good. The two American economies -- the Big Money economy and the Average Working Family economy -- will continue to diverge. Corporate profits will continue to rise, as will the Stock Market. But typic...

Safe Haven For Bad Journalists
by Zoë Pollock In classic style, Alex Pareene gloats about Judith Miller's new gig at Newsmax, "a goofy right-wing magazine where Conservatives you've never heard of (and John Stossel, apparently) report, constantly, that Barack Obama is bad and unpopular": While someone who's wrong about everything is an odd hire for any magazine, even one that exists mostly to sell old people Acai berries, Judith Miller, you must remember, was fired by the liberal New York Times. If li...

MARK TAPSCOTT: Political Elites Still Dont Get The Tea Party. Well, they may not get the Tea Part
MARK TAPSCOTT: Political Elites Still Don’t Get The Tea Party. Well, they may not get the Tea Party, but the Tea Party is likely to get them. ...

Movement Afoot To End Lame Duck Sessions Of Congress
The Lame Duck session of Congress is in the books, with many touts lauding the post-election period of congresspersons actually doing things as the most productive Lame Duck ever. This sort of glosses over the fact that a lot of the sexier things that passed -- the ratification of the START Treaty, health benefits for 9/11 First Responders, and the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- were wildly popular with the public and should have been considered "no-brainers." Plus, everyone got a Tax Cut,...

I'm rebalancing my portfolio. What do I sell?
(MONEY Magazine) -- I've read a lot about the benefits of rebalancing your portfolio annually, but I've never seen the answer to these questions: How do I decide which stocks to sell? And when should I "wait it out," assuming that a good stock will rise back to its pre-crash price, as opposed to pulling the trigger and accept a loss? -- Chris, Long Beach, Calif. As another year winds down, investors' thoughts naturally turn to reviewing the health of their portfolio and getting it in ...

New gun law in New Hampshire makes it legal to display a gun during a threatening situation: Free Ward Bird!
  As of the first of the year, a new gun law will go into effect in New Hampshire which states that it is not a Crime for a person to simply display a gun in an attempt to ward off a possible attacker. In reality this is not a new law; the New Hampshire constitution clearly states that a person has the right to use a gun in defense of himself, his property, or his state, this simply would clarify the constitution. (Although one would think that the New Hampshire constitution is cu...

Watch On An Empty Stomach
Once again it's those who do not live directly under the Cuban medical system (that the general population of Cuba MUST live under) singing the praises of the Castro regime's disgusting Medical Malpractice, and trying to sell it to the American People as a wonderful model for nationalized healthcare. In his memoir covering four years in Cuba as a correspondent for Spanish Television, Vicente Botín tells about a Havana woman who was frustrated by the doctor shortage in the country. She hung ...

More hits, misses to end the year
A few more lows and highs from the year ending tonight. MISS A disaster A 7.0 Earthquake struck Haiti in January, killing 230,000 people and leaving 1.5 million more Homeless. Into that misery and suffering surged billions of dollars and thousands of people desperate to provide help. Flooding followed, then Cholera. It is a testament to the horrors that struck that Island Nation, already the poorest in the western hemisphere, that it will take a decade - perhaps a generation - to recover. It wil...

State Health Care Compact an ObamaCare Repeal Idea
Next year, Republicans in Congress will float their Legislation to Repeal ObamaCare, though some suggest the Legislation is not likely to succeed in overturning the Controversial law. With President Barack Obama still in office and Democrats controlling the U.S. Senate, an expected bill approved by the newly-minted prolife Republican majority in the House of Representatives would place pressure on Obama and Democrats leading up to the presidential Elections but not likely be approved by either o...

Disgraced Iraq-Enabling Reporter Judith Miller Winds Up At Newsmax
Judith Miller was once an important war reporter person at The New York Times, but then she was sent to jail. But not for writing up fake stories about Weapons of Mass Destruction that helped the Bush Administration wage an illegal war! No, it was because she protected Scooter Libby’s telling her the name of Valerie Plame, another person from that decade. Anyway, Miller has finally found an actual journalism job, and it’s with Newsmax, which is rather hilarious, because that’s ...